Archive for the ‘Fat Fighting Foods’ Category

The Fit Dad back again for another edition of The Fit Dad Says…

Want to know the quickest and easiest way to make a complete mess and turn your daughter into the Joker?

Have her help you make a smoothie, and then let her drink from your giant smoothie cup.

Maren is at that point where she LOVES helping in the kitchen, although that’s not always the cleanest thing to let a 3-year old do.

These days are usually the days the kitchen floor gets scrubbed!

Oh well, just part of the process I guess.  Plus we’re teaching her some good, healthy habits and helping her not get hooked on kids’ cereals and other junk normally found for breakfast.

Today I thought I’d share with you a few of my favorite smoothie recipes.  6 out of 7 days I have a homemade smoothie for breakfast.  Mine’s usually the same because I’m boring, but these are a few recipes I made that you may enjoy.

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Berry Blast
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This is my personal breakfast smoothie and I love it!

½ Cup frozen blueberries
½ Cup frozen raspberries
½ Cup frozen strawberries
1 Scoop whey protein powder
1 serving ground flax seed
½ Cup All Natural Vanilla Yogurt
½ Cup real fruit juice (depends on what I’m in the mood for), but it has to be “real” fruit juice and not sugar water with fruit flavoring.

I flip-flop between the yogurt and something called Kefir, which is full of probiotics.  The plain type of Kefir tastes like crap, but it’s good for you – and that’s why I put it in the smoothie and don’t have it plain.  You can hide some bad tasting stuff in smoothies and not even know they’re there.

It’s going to be roughly 400-450 calories.  It’s full of protein, fiber and “good” carbs and will leave you with a ton of energy.  No caffeine needed!

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Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana
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Okay, I stole that name from the movie Baby Mama, but it fits…

½ Cup Orange Juice (real orange juice)
1 Scoop whey protein powder
1 Banana (chop it up for easier blending)
½ Cup All Natural Vanilla Yogurt
½ Cup Organic 1% Milk

This one is going to be roughly the same number of calories as the first one…400-450.  I’m not giving you specifics because the numbers will change depending on the size of the banana, brand of protein (1 scoop differs from brand-to-brand), etc.

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So Long Cereal!
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1 Cup Organic 1% Milk
1 tablespoon Honey
1 Scoop Whey Protein Powder
½ Cup Raw Oats
½ Cup Frozen Blueberries

Just like the previous 2, this one will be roughly 400-450 calories.  It’s also full of protein, vitamins, fiber and “good” carbs.  Another excellent way to start

your day!

There ya go, 3 very different types of breakfast smoothies.  They’re quick, easy to prepare and you can drink them on your way to work or while dropping the kids off at school.

I love smoothies for their simplicity plus the amount of nutrition you can cram into one meal.  All 3 of those are loaded with protein, “good” carbs, fiber, vitamins and minerals.

The cool thing is that just like we get Maren involved, you can get your kids involved too.  I guarantee you that after they try a smoothie for a few days they’ll prefer it to any junky cereal.

Give one of these puppies a try tomorrow for breakfast, or if you have your own breakfast smoothie that you’d like to share post a comment on my blog.  I’d love to get more ideas on healthy smoothies, whether for breakfast or after a workout.

Talk to you soon!

And remember…

Be a superhero today!

It’s time to head to the mailbag again and dig out some of the most common questions I’ve been receiving lately.

I truly do enjoy receiving and answering your questions, so don’t hesitate to ask or think that I won’t respond.  It might take me a day or two, but I will get back to you.

Anyway, here are some of the more common questions I’ve received in the past couple weeks from online clients and clients in my training studio.

Question:  “I eat well and exercise, but my weight is stuck.  Why?”

Let me start off by asking you a question – What does “I eat well and exercise” mean?

Does it mean you go for a walk or jog everyday or do other low-intensity activities?

If so, do something more intense and vary things up.  Go with resistance training and higher intensity cardio (or no cardio) for smaller periods of time.  Even if you’ve been doing the same workout, or the same type of workout for a while, change things up.  Do different exercises, different routines, different rep ranges, etc.

If you’re used to working out at a health club, do bodyweight workouts from home.

If your workouts are normally long – shorten them up and drastically reduce the amount of rest.

If you don’t rest much between exercises – rest a bit more and increase the resistance used.

When it comes to the “I eat well” statement, what in God’s name does that mean?

If you really do “eat well”, try keeping a food diary for 2 weeks, writing down everything you eat and drink, and then analyze it (or have a professional analyze it for you).  You might be surprised with what hidden gems you find.

You might fail to realize you eat 3 cookies every afternoon and that could be adding hundreds of calories a day to your diet.

You might realize that you eat small meals for breakfast and lunch, then have a huge dinner, which totally ruins the rest of the day.

Or you might find out that you eat well all week, then “live a little” on the weekends, which adds thousands of calories to an otherwise great diet.

Start there and see what you find.

Question:  “What are some of your favorite foods to help me lose weight?”

I try to fit these foods in my diet every day – berries (all kinds), apples, spinach, broccoli, almonds (and other raw nuts), lean meats, beans (not fried or refried…duh).

You can add on from there, but generally speaking ALL fruits and vegetables should be consumed, and you should eat a lot of them every day.  I try to stay away from grains, even whole-wheat, and that’s just a personal preference.  I eat them, but not much.

I also start every day off with a homemade smoothie loaded with berries and then add some ground flax, protein powder and organic skim milk and/or water.  It’s loaded with fiber, tons of antioxidants (and phytonutrients), protein and good-for-you carbohydrates.

Too much cheating on your diet will have you looking like this guy.

Question:  If I’m working out hard and exercising a lot, can I relax my nutrition habits?

Not if you want to lose weight.

Question:  Really, not even a little?

What’s your goal?  Do you want to maintain where you’re at, or actually lose that blubber sitting on your waistline?

This rationalization you use that you can relax your eating habits because you worked hard is one of the biggest reasons you’re failing to achieve your goals.

I’m not saying you can’t have some of your favorite treats.

Quite the opposite.

Enjoy the things you like, but in moderation.  If there’s a desert that looks good, I’m the first one in line…if I haven’t already eaten my quota.

And don’t lose sight of your goals.

If you are consistently exercising and want to have an Oreo cookie, or 4, go ahead, but stop there.  Don’t grab the whole bag and start dunking them in glasses of milk.

And don’t have a couple of cookies, then an hour later go out to dinner and have a cheeseburger and fries.

Always keep your goals at the top of your mind and don’t let people get to you if they start calling you a health nut for eating well.  Wear that as a badge of honor because you’re going to be the one with the fat free body while they’re complaining about their ever-growing gut, butt and thighs.

Have a great day!

Ed

P.S. – Like I said earlier, I truly do enjoy receiving and answering your questions.  Because of that, I’m going to answer them in a different format.  I’m going to start doing a weekly (or bi-weekly) podcast where I can go a little more in depth with the answers.  Sometimes it’s difficult to make the answers short and concise and I thought that by recording a podcast with some of the more common and popular questions I receive would be a great way to go.

I’ll be keeping you up to date on when they’re released and will provide you with the link to listen to it, or download it to your iPod or computer.

Until then, send me all the questions you have.  I’ll keep track of them and start recording!

I’m going to make this weight loss diet tip short and sweet.

It’s actually more than a tip, it’s something I actually want you to do and then tell me about your plan.

For the next week, I want you to add something good for you that you don’t normally eat to your daily diet and I want you to subtract something bad.

It doesn’t have to be a huge, ground shaking diet change, anything will do BUT you have to do something.

For example, if you don’t normally eat raspberries, eat some every day this week and if you drink pop every day, take it out (or at the very least subtract from your daily total if you drink multiple servings).

Or, if you don’t normally eat asparagus or broccoli, rotate them for the next week (eating broccoli one day and asparagus the next) and if you normally eat out for lunch, pack a lunch.

There are some obvious rules to this – the item you add has to be a fruit or vegetable and it can’t be juice…it has to be the actual piece of fruit or vegetable, yes I’m making you chew and digest food.

And obviously what you subtract has to be something you shouldn’t be consuming on a regular basis anyway, like pop (soda), “coffee drinks” (mocha frappa mucho grande lattes), fast food (doesn’t matter what you order, remove it), etc.

I’m going to participate in this as well.

I’m pretty bad about getting enough vegetables in and the easiest way for me to do that is to have a big lettuce and spinach salad for lunch every day and add broccoli to it, in addition to some protein in the form of nuts and chicken/turkey breast.

I’m going to subtract potato chips.  For some reason I’ve been eating chips with lunch over the past few weeks and I need to stop that.

I could blame it on Andrea, but she doesn’t force me to eat the things.  Actually I should blame it on Maren because she’s the one who asks for the Cheetos and I’m only too happy to oblige.

One way or another, I think we can all blame our kids for a little weight gain and poor eating.

All I’m asking (or telling) is for you to make 2 very small changes for 1 teeny, tiny week.  There is no excuse in the big book of excuses that can be used to shoot this request down.

It’s just too easy to do…now you just have to do it!

All it takes is baby steps…small changes over the course of a few weeks make a huge difference, but you have to be consistent with it.

Plus if you can do this for a week, it will be very easy to make those small changes permanent.

So what do you think?  Are you up for it?

You can do it.  I know you can.

Have a great day!

Ed Scow

P.S. – Let me know what your additions and subtractions will be for the week by leaving your comments below.  It helps to be held accountable and sometimes just letting someone else know is all the motivation you need to keep yourself in check.

Last week I was giving a presentation to a group of moms and I was talking about how important it is to eat nuts like almonds and peanuts when trying to lose weight.

It was right then that one of the moms raised her hand.

I knew it was coming.  I knew what the question was before she asked…

“Does it matter what kind of almonds I eat?”  “My husband likes to make smoked almonds, are those OK?”

No, those are not OK if you are trying to lose weight and get more toned.

That’s what I mean when I say food perversion.

The food industry (and some crafty cooks) has taken foods that are healthy, fat-burning foods, and turned them into massive weight gain bombs.

Nuts are just one example, and it’s one of the reasons I used to be so hesitant about recommending peanuts.

Peanuts, in their raw, unadulterated state, are awesome fat burning foods.  They’re high in fiber, protein and healthy fats.

But the food industry has perverted them into unhealthy calorie bombs.

Honey roasted, smoked, salted, jalapeno flavored are just some of the examples of the perverted peanuts.

The average consumer doesn’t think they’re unhealthy because they’re peanuts and peanuts are supposed to be OK.

What they don’t know is that they’ve just added hundreds of unnecessary calories that will wind up sitting right on top of their waistline.

The same thing has happened with yogurt.  Food manufacturers add all sorts of stuff to yogurt and them market it specifically to women or kids.  The bad thing is that they’re loaded with sugars, artificial flavorings and colorings and are just plain bad for you.

Even if they added fruit to the yogurt, they more than likely added sugar to make it actually taste like the fruit’s supposed to taste, as opposed to the rotting glob of strawberry you are actually getting.

Many dehydrated fruits have sugar, or artificial sweeteners and other additives, added to them like certain brands of raisins, craisins, apple and banana chips, etc.

The really bad thing is that many of these “good for you foods” are marketed to our kids.

Food manufacturers take what us parents view to be a health food, then twist and pervert its nutrients to turn it into a glorified candy bar and we’re none the wiser…

…unless you pay attention.

That’s the only way to combat food perversion.

You have to pay attention when shopping.  Don’t grab the first thing off the shelf with the pretty packaging.  Look at the ingredients and make sure it’s OK.

Buy the REAL versions of the food instead of the perverted ones.

No sugar added yogurts.

Real fruit.

Raw nuts – which can be bought in bulk and save you loads of money.

Nobody wants to be viewed as a pervert, so don’t be a food pervert.

Have a great day!

Ed

P.S. – If you ever have any questions related to nutrition, workouts, or anything else fitness related, don’t hesitate to email me.  As a matter of fact, one of the many free bonuses I include in my Fat Loss To Go, 10-minute workout program is 3 months of email support.  Get started today at:

www.FatLossToGo.com/StartToday.html

Sorry for missing last week’s edition of fat burning foods.  Don’t know why, but I didn’t feel like writing much last week.

Oh well, movin’ on.

Today’s fat burning food is…drum roll please…

…Apples!

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to do apples for my fat burning food series.

I eat at least 2 of them a day for God’s sake.

Can you give me one good reason not to eat apples every single day of your life?

They’re one of the most portable foods known to man.  Come to think of it, I’ve got one sitting in the cup holder of my car that I’ll probably eat on my way home today.  I’ll have to hide it from Maren, though because she likes apples just as much as me and she’ll mooch if she sees me eating it.

I’m not a good food sharer.  Even with my own daughter.  How bad is that? Read the rest of this entry »